JR East Unveils Interior of New Test Shinkansen Train

Rifu, Miyagi Pref., May 9 (Jiji Press)--East Japan Railway Co. <9020> unveiled to the media on Thursday the interior and other parts of a new test Shinkansen train, named ALFA-X, at a rolling stock center in the town of Rifu, in the northeastern prefecture of Miyagi.

On Friday, JR East will start test runs of the train between Sendai and Shin-Aomori stations in northeastern Japan at a maximum speed of 360 kilometers per hour, a world record for a Japanese bullet train. The test runs are planned to be conducted around 70 times annually.

The railway operator aims to introduce the new train mainly on the Tohoku and Hokkaido Shinkansen lines by the time the Hokkaido line is extended to Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido, northernmost Japan, slated for 2030.

Journalists were shown the exterior of the 10-car experimental train and the driver's seats in car No. 1, which would be frontmost when the train travels south, and in car No. 10, which would serve as the front car during northbound travel. The two cars are designed differently from each other to assess their relative functionality.

To reduce the pressure when the train enters a tunnel, the nose section of car No. 1 measures some 16 meters, one meter longer than the E-5 series train, which is currently in service, while that of car No. 10 is some 22 meters long.